07 Jul 2015

Chairperson of Botswana Ostrich Farmers Association (BOFA), Mr Valentine Dube, has pleaded with government and farmers to re-think the role of farmer organisations in the country.

Mr Dube said this at the Mid-Term Stakeholder Consultative seminar in Gaborone.

He said recent developments demanded that stakeholders, particularly government, needed to re-think the role of farmers’ organisations and these developments included globalisation, advent of the internet consequently improved information flow and changed farmer profile.

Mr Dube said extension services to farmers and farmer organisations had mainly involved transfer of technology, adding that farmers groups were formed primarily to ease the delivery of services to the farming communities.

He said communities were to be organised into cooperatives, associations or groups in order to access government subsidy programmes, access to credit and technical services.

He reiterated that government and stakeholders needed to recognise the potential of farmers organisations as partners in agricultural development and that there was need to change approach from prescribing solutions to farmers, to encouraging problem solving by farmers themselves.

“Technical know-how alone cannot achieve production efficiently and sustainably required for commercial competitiveness. Government should consider linking resources with farmers needs and developing solutions appropriate to different farming communities,” he said.

Mr Dube expressed that empowerment of farmers organisations could prove to be the cornerstone to sustainable agricultural production as it could enable farmers to organise themselves and take charge of their growth and development.

He further said the rationale behind capacity building was to inspire farming communities to understand their personal and community dynamics as well as to improve the way they respond to day to day challenges.

“Government approach to farmers’ organisations should consider capacity development of association leadership in various areas including information technology community mobilisation, administration and financial management as a way of enhancing leadership of associations.

An understanding of programmes and policies that support agricultural development would help farmers’ organisation leadership to plan, implement and monitor their programs effectively,” he said.

Mr Dube said the organisations needed to organise themselves as business entities to achieve competiveness and sustainability as well as to adapt to changing circumstances.

Meanwhile, the Multi-Species Abattoir, General Manager, Mr Conelis Grobbler said the company was concentrated on the slaughtering of ostriches and worked with BOFA to develop the industry.

He called on farmers to join hands with BOFA in developing the industry and plead with farmers to produce high quality birds at a sustainable level, citing sustainability as the biggest problem in the Industry. Ends